My Upcycle Aesthetic – Creole and Cajun

For my upcycle project I am planning on building a mini guitar out of random wood parts. Years ago I saw a booth at a flea market with a guy selling these small guitars made with a cigar box for a body. I have always wanted to make one of these and saw this project as the perfect opportunity. I actually have have the business card from the guy who made the guitar, Cigar Box Guitars by Rich Briggs. Here are a few of his guitar builds:

These instruments all have a rustic feel to them, with a special kind of Americana style to them, partially out of necessity due to the pieces used to build these instruments. Americana is an aesthetic that harkens back to an older American style. It usually follows an older rural American style, like blue jeans and cowboys. I want to follow a similar concept when building mine, but maybe upscale the finished product a bit. I want to not only do an Americana style build but more specifically related to New Orleans, Louisiana, Cajun style of Americana. I love the rustic and do it yourself style of many things in the Bayou attracts me, and would add to the homemade style of the guitar build.

I have always been interested in the Bayou of Louisiana, finding it a cool and mysterious place. I want to build my guitar with this style in mind. I am thinking of putting fleur-de-lis and alligator carvings all over, in an attempt to apply a feel for the swamps of the south east. I found a cigar box on face book marketplace from a New Orleans company with a fleur-de-lis on it, which would be a great start to creating my guitar in my aesthetic. I want to put more on the neck as fret markers as I think it would look very cool, but I will decide how many I should put on so it doe not look like too much.

I want to carve some alligators into the side to further the Louisiana Cajun style. I am even considering making the headstock of the guitar an alligator but I am not sure if this will be too much or not. Ideally making the guitar out of dark wood would make it look its best, but the cigar box I found is a light wood. Maybe paint or preferably wood stain would be able to make it darker.

One of the major things that draw me to New Orleans style is the vast mix of cultures that can be seen down there. The mix of French, American southern, and Caribbean cultures create something that is unlike anything else, making a unique and beautiful aesthetic. The importance of music to New Orleans also interests me in using that aesthetic to create my guitar, and I hope that I can fully apply this vision in creating my upcycle project.

Works Cited: